Recently, beer-taste soft drinks (so-called, non-alcohol beer-taste beverages) have been widespread among consumers. The non-alcohol beer-taste beverages have alcohol contents of less than 1% by mass, and hence do not belong to alcoholic beverages of the Japanese Liquor Tax Law. Even when such a non-alcohol beer-taste beverage is ingested in a large amount to enjoy the beer taste, the total amount of alcohol ingested is small. Hence, the non-alcohol beer-taste beverages are suitable for water supply, and meet the needs of recent health oriented people (for example, see Japanese Patent Application Publication No. Hei 8-228753, Japanese Patent Application Publication No. Hei 8-509855, and Japanese Patent Application Publication No. Hei 5-068528).
Some of these non-alcohol beer-taste beverages are known to be produced by suppressing (insufficiently carrying out) the alcoholic fermentation in the production process, to thereby reduce the content of alcohol produced by the fermentation. Others (unfermented beer-taste beverages) are known to be produced by carrying out no fermentation at all, but providing a beer-like flavor by means other than fermentation. Here, in particular, the unfermented beer-taste beverages are advantageous in that the beer-taste beverage can be produced without need for any special fermentation apparatus, and now are widely marketed as beverages which can be taken even by consumers who will drive a car, under the stricter regulations against drunk driving.